Date

Location

Tickets

This event is free; no tickets are required.

Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome Emerson College professor MEGAN MARSHALL—the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and The Peabody Sisters—for a discussion of her latest book, Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast.

About Elizabeth Bishop

Since her death in 1979, Elizabeth Bishop, who published only one hundred poems in her lifetime, has become one of America’s most revered poets. And yet—painfully shy and living out of public view in far-flung locations like Key West and Brazil—she has never been seen so fully as a woman and artist. Megan Marshall makes incisive and moving use of a newly discovered cache of Bishop’s letters—to her psychiatrist and to three of her lovers—to reveal a much darker childhood than has been known, a secret affair, and the last chapter of her passionate romance with Brazilian modernist designer Lota de Macedo Soares.

These elements of Bishop’s life, along with her friendships with fellow poets Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell, both important champions of her work, are brought to life with novelistic intensity. And by alternating the narrative line of biography with brief passages of memoir, Megan Marshall, who studied with Bishop in her storied 1970s poetry workshop at Harvard, offers the reader an original and compelling glimpse of the ways poetry and biography, subject and biographer, are entwined.

Megan Marshall

Megan Marshall

Megan Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir. Margaret Fuller: A New American Life —the 2014 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Biography—is Marshall’s second biography, a character-driven narrative grounded in fact that tests the boundaries of the form. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and Slate. She lectures widely on the art of biography, research methods, and the lives and times of her subjects. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEH fellowships, Marshall teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College.

From

To

Harvard Book Store1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes

As you exit the station, reverse your direction and walk east along Mass. Ave. in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Cross Dunster St. and proceed along Mass. Ave for three more blocks. You will pass Au Bon Pain, JP Licks, and TD Bank. Harvard Book Store is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St.

Unable to attend a Harvard Book Store author event? You can still pre-order a signed book by one of our visiting authors.

While we can't guarantee fulfillment of a signed book pre-order, our authors are almost always able to sign extra books to fulfill such orders.

Ordering a signed book on harvard.com:

Add the book to your shopping cart and then click Checkout.

Specify in Order Comments that you want a signed copy of the book.

Please note: online orders for signed copies must be placed at least one business day before the event. If you are ordering the day of, please call us instead.

Ordering a signed book by phone:

Call us at (617) 661-1515 and one of our booksellers will take your order. Specify you'd like a signed copy.

If you are requesting a personalized inscription and/or requesting your book be shipped, we'll need to take down credit card information. If you are planning to pick up the signed book in the store, you can pay on pick-up.

FAQ:

Can I request a personalized inscription?
Unless otherwise noted, we are happy to take requests for the author to sign your book to a specific person, but we can't guarantee it. If you do get a personalized inscription, the book will be non-returnable. We will require credit card information when you place the order.

Do signed books cost more?
There is no extra fee for a signed book!

Do I have to pick it up in the store, or can you deliver my signed book?
As with all web or phone orders, we can hold your book for in-store pickup, or ship it anywhere in the country.

I am planning to attend an author event. Do I need to pre-order a book?
No need. We'll be selling books at the event, and nearly all of our events include a signing at the end of the talk.

More questions? Give us a call!

Event Series: This Month's Selection for our Signed First Edition Club

Harvard Book Store's Signed First Edition Club is a unique way for readers to connect with and create a wealth of great books. Each month, Harvard Book Store offers members a signed first edition of a newly published book, selected for both its literary merit and potential collectibility. Learn more and sign up at harvard.com/signedfirst.

Co-Sponsored by Mass Humanities

Mass Humanities conducts and supports programs that use history, literature, philosophy, and the other humanities disciplines to enhance and improve civic life in Massachusetts. Learn more at masshumanities.org.

Purchase the BookFeatured event books will be for sale at the event for 20% off. Thank you for supporting this author series with your purchases.